What led you to become a researcher?

I was raised in a single-parent, low-income home. My mother did not graduate high-school and as I progressed through my education I found it more and more difficult to navigate. As a teenager, I realized my queerness. As I was raised religious, I felt that this portion of my identity was something to be hidden. Throughout highschool, I struggled to reconcile the beliefs of my family and peers with my own identity. During my undergraduate education, I still struggled with this inner conflict. I also realized during this time that I was woefully unprepared for college. As a first-generation student, I struggled both with the financial burden of college and the emotional toll the stress would cause.

It was through these two major conflicts in my life that my research interests arose. I am interested in two major areas: adolescent identity support and higher education transitions. I hope that my research can help to mitigate the issues that I faced, especially in identity development of adolescents. At the end of the day, I care most about helping others.

What are your goals for the future?

In the long-term, I want to develop tools and programs for educators that help them develop supportive classroom-environments. In my graduate education, I hope that I can research what supportive environments look like and how educators linguistically signal support to students. After attaining my PhD, I hope to continue in higher education as a professor at a university.